Schaeffler Ag announced that interim CEO Klaus Rosenfeld will keep his title permanently and drop the appointment of an outside manager intended to help tie the company to its affiliate company Continental Ag.
“The executive board of Schaeffler Ag has done an exceptional job over the past months,” Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler and Georg Schaeffler, the sole owners of the Herzogenaurach, Germany-based industrial-bearing maker, said in a statement. “We are convinced that continuity is in the interest of our company.”
Rosenfeld temporarily took on the role of CEO in addition to his chief financial officer post in October after the founding family ousted Juergen Geissinger from the position. Rosenfeld outlined Schaeffler’s plans in March to widen manufacturing cooperation with Continental, Europe’s second-biggest maker of car parts.
Schaeffler said in February that Klaus Deller, head of commercial-vehicle braking systems at Knorr-Bremse Ag, would become CEO. The company and Deller did not state why Deller will not continue in his role.
Schaeffler is seeking to reduce debt from an attempt to buy a limited stake in Continental that backfired amid the global recession of 2008. Net debt was 6.4 billion euros at the end of December, down from a figure that at one point exceeded 10 billion euros.
The bearing producer also extended Chief Technology Officer Peter Gutzmer’s contract for a five more years and named him deputy CEO, according to the statement.
